On top of a ridge in Beverly Crest, a 120-acre estate owned by late Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, has sold for $65 million — a deep discount from its original price tag of $150 million.
The prized piece of land is one of the largest undeveloped properties in the area. Floating above the city, taming the rough canyon landscape with pristine stretches of grass, it’s easy to see how it earned the nickname Enchanted Hill.
The name stretches back to the 1920s, when the property was owned by screenwriter Frances Marion and silent film star Fred Thomson. Their neighbor, Hollywood actress Greta Garbo, is credited with coining the Enchanted Hill phrase that stuck for a century.
Marion and Thomson commissioned famed California architect Wallace Neff to build a home on the property, and Neff designed a Spanish Colonial Revival-style gem that stood for decades until Allen bought the property for $20 million in 1997 and razed it shortly afterward.
He planned to replace it with a mansion but never completed the project. However, he did ready the grounds for development, dividing the estate into five separate lots and adding a one-mile driveway, two guard-gated entrances and infrastructure for utilities. At the time, Allen imagined a single-family compound that included space for equestrian facilities and a winery.
The development is comprised of five separate lots with city and ocean views.
(Berlyn Photography)
His vision never came to pass, and he died in 2018 after a battle with cancer. A trust tied to his estate put the property up for sale a year later at $150 million and eventually trimmed the tag down to $95 million.
Snaking along the ridge-top lot, the compound takes in sweeping views of the city, ocean and canyons. There are two entrances: one on Benedict Canyon Drive and one on Angelo Drive.
Jeff Hyland, Rick Hilton and Zach Goldsmith of Hilton & Hyland held the listing.
Allen, who died at 65, was a programming genius who was 22 when he founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. After leaving the company eight years later, with what would become one of the largest fortunes in U.S. history, he devoted his life to philanthropic causes and investments, including buying the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers franchises.
At the time of his death, Forbes estimated his net worth at $20.3 billion.
The $65-million property isn’t even Allen’s most expensive sale of the year. Over the summer, his estate sold the Octopus, a $266-million mega-yacht complete with a swimming pool, gym, library and space for two helicopters and a submarine, according to Superyacht Times.